Tynga's reviews

Showing posts with label Melissa Marr. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

I was so lost for so much of this book. I read Wicked Lovely last year and I guess it didn't really impact me. I spent much of the book trying to remember these characters, and whether or not I should like them.

I didn't like any of them.

The protagonist is in a HORRIFIC life situation, with an absentee dad who can't even manage to pay the power bill and a recent sexual assault and a drug dealer brother. She makes this great ( <-- sarcasm) life choice to get a big tattoo and it manages to wreck her life further by putting her squarely in the middle of a big faery court battle. The guy who gives her the tattoo doesn't warn her and doesn't help her and never falls under any retribution for what he's done. The protagonist's best friend is a queen of a faery court, but she's very laissez-afire about the whole thing and tries to avoid getting involved and helping her friend.

The whole book is so freaking dark and depressing!

But that's just my singular impression. This series is wide-read and loved by some. It does have faeries, which I usually love. These faeries are on the darker side of magic, though. I could totally see if you like bad-boy romance, you'd like these books. Also, while not a book series I'd hand to younger teens, I would hand it to an older teen who is looking for edgy romance. So while I did not get into this book, others may. Sometimes you just have to be in the right mood.

Marie

Posted by Tynga at 01:00

Faeries, Fairies, Fairy Tales amp; Folklore, Library, Love amp; Romance, Melissa Marr, Recorded Books, Review, Wicked Lovely, young adult 2 People left their mark

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Wicked Lovely is one of the most popular paranormal books for Young Adults and it has a huge fanbase. Wicked Lovely has received quite mixed reviews and it seems that many readers either love it or hate it. In the right hands, Wicked Lovely will be the perfect book with it's love triangle, irritating main character, and Twilight-esque romance. I wasn't impressed with this book at all and I can't imagine myself reading any more of Marr's books.

Wicked Lovely isn't a terrible book, it's just felt incredibly cheesy and dull. This is a book that is only romance and the novel's meager plot is driven by the Seth-Keenan-Aislinn love triangle. I'm fine with a slow moving plot, but I had absolutely no interest in any of the Winter Court's or The Summer Court's affairs. Why should I care if Keenan finds his true love? I wanted Marr to engross me in the cruel. deceptive world of the fairies, but I can't enjoy a book where I don't enjoy the characters or the romance.

Aisilinn is one of the most bland main characters and I couldn't sympathize with her at all. Aislinn's actions frequently annoyed me and I didn't understand her love for Keenan at all. Keenan acted like such a jerk and yet Aislinn was absolutely enamored with him in certain sections of the book. I wasn't a huge fan of Seth either, but anyone was better than Keenan in my mind.

Marr clearly did a ton of research with Wicked Lovely and it is evident throughout the entire book. If I wasn't so annoyed with the unappealing romance, I definitely think I would've enjoyed the fairies aspects. I wanted to enjoy the fairy political affairs, but I just couldn't make myself care.

Wicked Lovely was a bit of an ordeal for me to read and I was extremely bored throughout. I wasn't a fan of Marr's writing style and the romance she wrote was extremely unappealing and it was extremely irritating. This definitely wasn't the book for me and I wish I had enjoyed it more!

Posted by Tynga at 01:00

Fairies, Fantasy, HarperCollins, HarperTeen, Library, Melissa Marr, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Review, Wicked Lovely, young adult 8 People left their mark

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

I'm usually a fan of whatever Melissa Marr writes, but this one really wasn't my favourite. I really tried to enjoy it and despite the few positive aspects to the book, it just didn't quite cut it for me. The world building was really interesting and well done but the actual storyline and the flow of the novel seemed to lack details.

Personally, I didn't think it felt like a full novel and when I looked into it on the author's website, I was confused when I noticed that two novellas/short stories will be published, one as a prequel and another as a sequel, with no other books in sight. I think the book would have been more complete if everything would have been published together, and as it stands, the cliffhanger is a reader's nightmare. I guess it's good from a publisher's perspective in order to create more sale oppurtunities, but as a reader, it leaves me unsastisfied and unsure if I'll read anything else from the series.

On a positive note, I find Mallory is a well rounded and complete character that supports the story very well. With the many fluctuating point of views, it's not clear who spends more time at the centre of the story but one thing is for sure, the story revolves constantly around Mallory which makes her an unsuspecting main character. Her origins are a little confusing at first but as the story progresses, we get to learn more and more about her background. Personally I found it a little strange that her witchy adoptive father kept everything from her, even using magic to manipulate her mind to make her forget things. He even went to the extreme, hiding her daimon origin, but it did create some good anticipation as Mallory unraveled the mystery that had been following her around her whole life.

Kaleb is another interesting character, a low blood daimon who is trying to make a name for himself and trying to rise to the top of the daimon ranks. He inadvertently falls in love with Mallory as he stalks her when given the task of following her by assassin contractor. Their odd relationship is a little exaggerated, like many young adult novels but still kept me interested throughout the novel. I'm curious about how everything will end for them in the sequel, but I have a suspicious feeling the continuation of the series won't be all that satisfying.

I will hand it to Melissa Marr, however. She has a sneaky way of writing, making her readers scratch their heads about who the real antagonist is. Marchosias, the leader of The City, where daimons live, does seem like the ultimate bad guy. Every daimon is weary of him and only wish to be on his good side, but the seemingly all knowing ruler isn't encountered very often and doesn't give off an evil feeling when we do meet him. Evelyn, Mallory's aunt, appears to be a little more wicked, her hate of daimons really surfacing near the end if the novel. Despite her brother's fatherly love for Mallory, her hate for her adoptive niece is expected but uncalled for. The reason behind the war between witches and daimons could have been expanded a little more, in order for us to better understand the animosity between the two races, but the tension between the many characters is one of the book's strong points.

The world building was the forte of this book but in my opinion the actual storytelling fell short. Like I mentioned previously, it fells like the story was incomplete and the cliffhanger was just awful. And to learn that this cliffhanger will only be followed by a "short sequel" makes me doubt the series in general. If you're a fan of Melissa Marr or if you already have this book stacking your to read shelf, I recommend that you wait until the two short stories are published later this year in order to get a more complete feel for this story. I'm usually a fan of novellas and short stories, when they are used correctly as fillers, but in this case, I don't think they will be utilized properly. In my opinion, a series can begin with "0.5" but shouldn't finish with "1.5".

Posted by Tynga at 02:00

Daimons, Harper Collins, Magic, Melissa Marr, Paranormal, Purchased, Review, Untamed City, witches, young adult 3 People left their mark

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Smart Chicks Kick It Tour – Event Recap

Saturday was a really awesome day for me. Not only did I travel to Montréal to meet Tynga and many other Montréal bloggers, but I also got to meet these lovely ladies:

Yes! Those are the Smart Chicks (or les poulettes intélligentes as Margaret Stohl would say) from the Smart Chicks Kick It Tour. Their stop in Montréal might not have been as huge as some of their other stops (I mean, it had to compete with cities like Las Vegas!) but it was a chance of a life time I could not pass up.

The Pointe Claire Chapters was nice enough to host the event and I think they did a pretty good job of it. I mean, they had to deal with us book bloggers, taking over their area. Look at how much room we took. You can see Cindy from Cindy’s Love of Books (left), Tynga (middle) and myself (right) surrounded by piles of books, ready to be signed. It was practically a fire hazard!

Unfortunately, the authors told us that we weren’t able to take any video or audio recordings of the event because they sometimes say things that they shouldn’t. And of course, they didn’t want people to actually have proof of their “bad behavior.” One author (she will remain nameless because I don’t want to get her into trouble), even said that that if you’re an new author and you want to get published, the first step is getting an agent. Because an agent is a monster you keep on a leash whom you can unleash on the publisher or someone else when things go bad.

The authors also shared some of their book news, and some of their books-to-movies news. Of course, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl was filmed this summer and is coming out February 13, 2013 (awesome release date, right?).

And even more exciting news is from Kelley Armstrong who told us that the first book from her Women of the Otherworld series, Bitten, will be made into a 13 episode TV series by Space! Personally, I think TV series are way better than movies because it allows so much more of the story to make it to the screen. According to Kelley, casting should begin early 2013 and the show will premiere sometimes in the fall of 2013. You can find out more about it here. Yay for Canadian television!

During the event, many books and Chapters Indigo gift cards were given away. But I was lucky enough to get this prize pack from Rosemary Clement-Moore since I travelled almost 10 hour to get to the event. Usually it takes me about 8 hours and a half to travel from my small town near Sudbury to Montreal but on Saturday, took me about an extra hour to get there. Problem was, I decided to leave really early in the morning (like at 3 am), which in theory would have been good to avoid as much traffic as possible. Unfortunately, there was an area of the highway they were repaving and I got stuck waiting for about 20 minutes. And then, sometimes after the sun rose, it truly hit me that I only go 3 hours of sleep so I decided to stop for a little break and have a good breakfast (and a quick nap). Oh, and then there’s the fact that I went to the wrong place when I got to Montréal. I had a hard time finding the Chapters that hosted the event but hurray! for my Iphone that guided me to the right place! So, for all this extra trouble, I go a Texas themed prize. I have to say, that Texas Two-Step chocolate was awesome! If I ever visit Texas, I’ll have to make sure to stock up! Thanks Rosemary!

I was really happy to get all my books signed (see image on the right). The authors were nice enough to sign all our copies. Of course, most of my books were from Kelley Armstrong. She was probably the most popular author there, since she is Canadian. I won’t bore you with pictures of all the signatures. You’ll just have to take my word for it. =D

I also bought a few books, including Enthralled, which is an anthology written by many of the authors of the tour. Melissa Marr explained to me that since this a tour organized by authors and not their publishers, the travelling expenses must be paid by the authors themselves. That’s where the idea for an anthology came from. It was published more or less to help pay for the Smart Chicks Kick It tour. I thought it was pretty genius idea.

This will definitively be a day I never forget. I’m glad we took many pictures including some with the authors. I was actually surprised how warm and friendly they all were. And I must say, Margaret Stohl was a riot! She had a quirky and hilarious comment for everything.

Thank you again to all of the people who organized this tour, especially Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr. Also, this event would not have been possible if it weren’t for Chapters Indigo, so thank you!

To finish off my post, here are a few more pictures!

From left to right: Lucy from Moonlight Gleam’s Bookshelf, Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr, Kami Garcia, Tynga, Cindy from Cindy’s Love of Books, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Emilie from Emilie’s Book World Ciara from Lost at Midnight Reviews, Stéphanie (me), and Rachel Caine.